Purpose

To consolidate, disseminate, and gather information concerning the 710 expansion into our San Rafael neighborhood and into our surrounding neighborhoods. If you have an item that you would like posted on this blog, please e-mail the item to Peggy Drouet at pdrouet@earthlink.net

Thursday, October 3, 2013

No NTSB investigators for deadly bus crash because of government shutdown: official

The National Transportation Safety Board is not sending anyone to
investigate a horrific Tennessee bus crash that left eight people dead
and 14 more injured because the government shutdown furloughed all its
highway investigators, an NTSB official said.

“In this particular
case I think it’s highly likely that we would have responded to it, but
again, with our investigators furloughed, it’s impossible to do that,”
Sharon Bryson, deputy director of communications for the NTSB, told NBC
News.

“All of our highway investigators are furloughed,” Bryson said.

Eight
people were killed after a bus carrying members of a church in North
Carolina overturned around 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, officials said. The bus
was carrying members of the Young at Heart program at Front Baptist
Church in Statesville, N.C., who were headed back from an annual
preaching and gospel music conference in Tennessee, the church said.

The 14 people injured in the accident were described as senior citizens.

The
crash appears to have been caused by an issue with the bus’ front tire
as the vehicle traveled along Interstate 40 east of Knoxville, said Sgt.
Bill Miller, a spokesman for the Tennessee Highway Patrol, in a news
conference Thursday morning.

The bus crossed the median and rammed
into a tractor-trailer vehicle and an SUV carrying three people before
turning over on its side and setting the tractor-trailer ablaze,
according to Miller. Six people on the bus were killed and one person
died in each of the two other vehicles.
The University of
Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville treated 14 elderly patients, two
of whom were still listed as being in critical condition late on
Wednesday. Seven more were in serious condition, and the rest were
considered stable.

Emergency
workers respond to a crash involving a passenger bus, a tractor-trailer
and an SUV near Dandridge, Tenn., on Wednesday.

“We
saw bodies all over the ground and some people walking around," said
Fred Lucas, who stopped to lend assistance on Wednesday.

Lucas and
his wife, who are doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical
Center in Ohio, were driving to Asheville, Tenn., when they spotted the
smoke from the crash, The Knoxville News reported.

Their doctors' instincts kicked in, and both Lucases began helping with a makeshift triage effort.
"Just
get them away from the fire — figure out who was alive and who was dead
and get the live ones first," Lucas told the newspaper. "I didn't even
stop to figure out who was who. There wasn't any time for that."

NTSB
Chairman Debbie Hersman had confirmed to NBC News on Wednesday night
that the board -- which is tasked with investigating significant
accidents in the air, on highways, and on the water – would not deploy
anyone to the site of the Tennessee crash. A spokesman for the Tennessee
Emergency Management Agency said that officials in the state requested
NTSB assistance overnight.
Miller described the damage to the bus as “tremendous” on Thursday.

“Some
of the identifications of the individuals involved in this incident,
involved in this crash, it’s not very easy to discern who they are, the
crash is so horrific,” Miller said, adding that some of the individuals
may need to be identified by their dental records.

“It’s probably the worst that I’ve seen in my career,” said Miller, a 17-year veteran.

The
Tennessee Highway Patrol is leading the investigation into the crash,
and will look at factors including the speed the bus was traveling,
service records for the bus, and the driver’s history, Miller said on
Thursday.

“We’re in the very first stages of this investigation,” Miller said.

NTSB
investigators responding to an incident like Wednesday’s bus crash
would usually spend a week or two on the scene, Bryson said. Compiling a
final report would take about 12 months on average, she said. As for
what they would have found if the NTSB had made an investigation of the
Tennessee crash, Bryson said that will likely remain unclear.

“I think it’s hard to say,” Bryson said. “Without being able to take a look at it, it’s really hard for us to know.”